The business aspects of get-tough immigration policy
filing, CCA stated: “We are dependent on government appropriations.” CCA chairman William Andrews warned investors that the company’s high returns could be threatened by a change in the policy environment: “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts … or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws.”
In its quarterly conference call with major Wall Street investment firms of November 2008, Corrections Corporation of America boasted that it enjoyed a $33.6 million increase in the third quarter over last year, while earnings rose 15 percent during the same period. Formerly known as Wackenhut, GEO Group, the nation’s second largest prison company, saw its earnings jump 29 percent over 2007. Cornell Companies, another private prison firm that imprisons immigrants, reported a 9 percent increase in net revenues in the third quarter.
Barry writes that private prison companies are not worried that the Democratic Party sweep in the November 2008 elections will mean fewer beds. GEO Group’s chairman George Zoley on 3 November assured investors: “These federal initiatives to target, detain, and deport criminal aliens throughout the country will continue to drive the need for immigration detention beds over the next several years and these initiatives have been fully funded by Congress on a bipartisan basis.”
Addressing investor fears that recent decreases in undocumented immigration inflows might dampen company returns, CCA CEO and Board chairman John Ferguson said, “So even though we have seen the border crossings and apprehensions decline in the last couple of years, we are really talking about dealing with a population well north of 12 million illegal immigrants residing in the United States.”
The CCA chief assured investors that the company’s dependence on detained immigrants is not a factor of policy but rather of law enforcement. “The Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Marshals Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement are carrying out statutory obligations for their responsibility … We should continue to see their utilization of the private sector to meet their statutory obligations and requirements.”
The prison executives even intimate that the economic slow-down will fatten their business. When asked by an investment company representative about a possible downturn in detained immigrants, James Hyman, president of Cornell Companies, said, “We do not believe we will see a decline in the need for detention beds particularly in an economy with rising unemployment among American workers.”
Immigrant prisons as economic development
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